Ran and Haibara's Dangerous Shopping Date
by Muphrid
Summary: Growing suspicious of Conan, Ran decides to take Haibara out to ask some questions about Conan's behavior and intelligence, but their shopping date turns tense when Haibara sees Gin's car idling nearby.


**Ran and Haibara's Dangerous Shopping Date  
** _By Muphrid_

How do you prove that your best friend has gotten 10 years younger and is hiding it from you? It's a silly question, right? Short of fingerprints or DNA testing, what can you do?

I'd thought about this before. It wasn't the first time I'd thought that the little boy living with my family was too similar to a certain mystery geek I knew. They were both sharp. Once you accounted for the age difference, they looked very, very similar, and sometimes, that boy would say things like he was Kudo Shinichi himself—talking about Shinichi's cases or his family—only to take it back later. I even gave my blood to that boy on a hunch just because I knew Shinichi and I had the same blood type! But each time I started thinking that way, something would come up to tell me I was being silly. It's impossible, right? If I'd already seen Shinichi and Conan-kun in the same room, how could I think they were the same person?

Well, maybe I'm an idiot, but if I'm already talking about some magic invention to turn someone back into a child, how much harder is it to disguise someone as someone else? All right, that might just sound even more crazy, but hear me out. I wasn't jumping to conclusions. I just wanted to look into it more.

I started thinking this way again one day while I was cleaning Shinichi's library. I didn't go over to his house as often as I once had because of the grad student who was staying there, but it was a big house, and knowing that Subaru-san had moved in only because his apartment complex had burned down, it seemed unfair to saddle him with such a chore.

So, I was at Shinichi's house one Saturday while Conan-kun and his friends were next door playing video games. I was only about halfway through the library when Conan-kun called. There'd been a car accident on the road outside, and the kids needed help! I ran outside and found a car had smashed into a lamppost. The air bags had deployed, and the driver was sitting back, dazed in his seat. It looked like he might be pinned by the steering wheel.

I met the Professor and the kids at the driver-side door. The driver was in pain; he was having trouble breathing, and it hurt for him to talk and turn his head. He begged for us to get him out, but Conan-kun wouldn't have it.

"You could have a spinal cord injury; sit tight and let the professionals handle it when they get here," he said. Conan-kun turned to his friend Ai-chan, and they took a look at the driver's leg. "Haibara," he said, "what do you make of this wound?"

There was an awful gash down the driver's right leg. Part of the door had buckled, and the plastic on the inside had cut into him. It was so bad that Ayumi-chan covered her eyes with her hands.

"I don't think it's bad enough to reach a deep vein," said Ai-chan. "Let's just get some pressure on it."

Conan-kun snapped his fingers. "Genta, Mitsuhiko—get some towels, yeah?"

The boys ran back inside, but Ai-chan and Conan-kun looked at the driver's leg injury a little longer, talking about the different "superficial" veins of the leg. Conan-kun started reciting something about removal of varicose veins, trying to assure the driver that this wasn't a serious injury. It was definitely a vein, so there was little chance of him losing part of his leg. The only concern was losing blood, which the boys would help take care of. I offered to help bind the wound since the kids would have a hard time applying the right amount of pressure. Conan-kun thanked me for that, and he and Ai-chan went behind the car, looking at the road on the way to the crash.

"These light skid marks," said Ai-chan. "The hand brake?"

"Looks like it," said Conan-kun. "Sir, were your brakes out?"

The man nodded very slightly—as much as he could given his neck pain—and I passed that along to Conan-kun.

"That must be this liquid here," said the Professor. "Brake fluid."

"But it's a lot of dripping, not a few drops here and there," said Conan-kun. I was watching him through the rear window of the car, and he ducked out of sight—going low to look at the undercarriage. "That's a clean cut," said Conan-kun. "Sir, you don't have a leak; is someone trying to kill you?"

The man sighed. It sounded like maybe he knew who would be trying to kill him, but we'd leave that to someone like my father or the police. What left a big impression on me, once I was done dressing the man's wound with towels, was the sight of Conan-kun and Ai-chan behind the car, already figuring out that this was no simple accident.

It wasn't the first time I thought Conan-kun might not be Conan-kun, but seeing the two of them there gave me a new idea of how to go about it. If anyone had noticed Conan-kun's surprising take-charge attitude or his intelligence, it had to be the person who was closest to him.

It had to be Ai-chan.

#

I didn't know very much about Ai-chan. She was the type to keep to herself. For the longest time she wouldn't even talk to me—not like Conan-kun's other friends—but lately she'd seemed more outgoing. She even had this adorable crush on a soccer player, and she wasn't at all shy about showing it. Apart from that, though, I had no idea how to reach her, let alone how to pick her brain about Conan-kun's behavior.

I asked some of my friends for ideas. The first person I turned to was Sera-san. She didn't know Ai-chan very well, but she was a detective, and if I thought that there was more to Conan-kun than met the eye, she would surely have the best idea for how to go about that—or so I thought, but when I called Sera-san and told her what I was thinking about doing, she laughed, saying she couldn't do much to help. "The whole idea of someone shrinking down back to the age of a child—it's quite unbelievable, don't you think?" she said. "Unless she can tell you how it happened, I don't think talking to her will prove very much!"

Maybe not, but I just needed a small opening, something to say, you know, this kid doesn't act very much like a kid. Maybe he'd mentioned something that only Shinichi should know.

I called Sonoko about trying to reach out to Ai-chan, and she had a much better idea. For a while I'd thought I'd have to take Ai-chan to a soccer game to connect with her, but Sonoko thought of something that was more inconspicuous: a shopping date. "Have you seen that girl?" asked Sonoko. "Her sense of style would put half our year to shame! Every time I've seen her, she's been impeccably dressed! If anything, you could learn a thing or two from her, Ran!"

Well, I'm sorry to be outdone by a first-grader!

"Take me with you!" said Sonoko. She was so loud I thought she might blow out the speaker on my phone. "I really want to see what that girl has to say about the new Fusae clutch line."

Uh, that would make it difficult for me to ask Ai-chan if Conan-kun were really a 17-year-old boy.

"The truth is," I told Sonoko, "I really want to figure out how Ai-chan feels about Conan-kun."

"That again? Geez, Ran! I'm telling you, he's totally into Ayumi-chan!"

I shuddered. Just the thought of Shinichi entertaining the affections of 7-year-old girls was a little creepy. But, it was better for Sonoko to think I was just meddling in a child's love life. The last thing I needed was for her to laugh at a silly idea of mine. I'd never live it down.

Okay, so I had a good idea. I'd take Ai-chan on a girls' date. That was a good start. The only wrinkle in the plan was that I didn't have Ai-chan's number or any other way to contact her directly. I thought about calling the Professor and having him put Ai-chan on the phone, but I decided to go through Conan-kun instead, so I stopped by his room. When I told Conan-kun it would be just Ai-chan and me, he seemed skeptical. "Why would you want to take Haibara out by yourself?" Oh, he said it with such an innocent voice, but the question itself couldn't have been more pointed. I could imagine Shinichi asking me the same question, just with narrowed eyes and his trademark "are you being stupid?" tone of voice.

Well, I decided to say that Ai-chan could use a big sister figure in her life. That was a reasonable thing, right?

Conan-kun winced at that. "Don't say that around Haibara," he said, not even trying to sound cute. "She won't like it."

"She has a sister?" I asked.

Conan-kun stared for a long time, his brow furrowing as he tried to come up with the right answer.

"She had a sister," I concluded.

He sighed, and he nodded. "Don't tell her I told you. She won't like that, either."

Well, that was all the more reason to reach out to her—if she was missing family. But I wasn't exactly doing it for that reason, so I felt a little bad about it. Maybe it wouldn't be right to take her out on a date and make her feel that way, but who was to say I couldn't do both? I could try to reach out to her and also try to get some information from her, right? That wouldn't be too bad, would it?

"Ran-nee-chan, are you sure you don't have another idea in mind?" asked Conan-kun in his cutesy voice again.

I leaned over and tousled his hair. "You're pretty close, aren't you? You two are pretty cute together, you know!"

Conan-kun tried to fight off me off weakly. "Ran-nee-chan!" he complained. "Haibara and I aren't like that!"

"Oh really?"

"Haibara would sooner kiss a dog than a man!"

I rapped him on the forehead. "Conan-kun, that's mean!"

"It's true, though!" said Conan-kun, rubbing the wound. "She likes animals way more than people."

"Still, I wouldn't go around saying things that way. She's a friend, isn't she?"

Conan-kun frowned at that. " _Friend_ isn't the right word."

You'd better not be Shinichi if you're talking like that. I never pegged you for having a Lolita complex!

Thankfully, Conan-kun didn't mean it the way I feared. "She's someone you have to look out for," he said, and he got out his phone to ask Ai-chan about my proposal. "You have to look out for her because sometimes she won't protect herself." He laughed. "Then again, I think she'd say the same about me. What's the word for that?"

I didn't know of one.

He looked at his phone, raised an eyebrow, and scratched at his hair. "She says _yes_. Tomorrow afternoon, right? Maybe around one?"

I nodded.

He turned his phone off and put it away, going back to his book. "Good luck."

#

The next day, it was cool, windy, and overcast, and Ai-chan was dressed for the occasion, wearing a beige coat and bringing along a black umbrella (the same shade of black as the shirt beneath her coat). She was matching down to the colors of her handbag. Sonoko was right; this girl's clothes reminded me of the kinds of things Sonoko used to wear when we were young, but unlike Sonoko, who had paid caretakers to manage her wardrobe, Ai-chan had dressed herself. Certainly the Professor wasn't much help that way. To be honest, it was a little intimidating—and that wasn't even accounting for her sharp look.

"Um, good afternoon, Ai-chan," I said.

"Hello," she said, taking a step out. She took a look at the clouds but kept her umbrella folded.

"So, um, are you ready to go?" I asked.

She nodded, and she called back inside. "Professor, I'll check in around three," she said. "You're not going to touch that jar of nuts, are you?"

There was a slight whimper from inside, and Ai-chan seemed satisfied. I thought about holding her hand as we headed down the steps, but with one hand on her umbrella and another on the strap of her bag, there was nothing for me to hold on to.

Ai-chan was a sharp one, and it didn't surprise me that, once we made it to the street, she had a question to ask. "So?" she said. "What's this really about?"

"Whatever do you mean?" I said in my most innocent voice. "I just want to get to know you better. You're Conan-kun's best friend after all."

"Huh?" Her face twisted. "According to whom?"

"You wouldn't say so?"

We walked along the side of the road for a time as Ai-chan thought about how to respond. "It's a friendship of convenience," she said at last. "I'm sure if he had a choice in the matter, he would choose to spend time with someone else."

"Who?"

Ai-chan looked at me, but instead of answering, she changed the subject. "So, I'm supposed to be Edogawa-kun's best friend. What about it?"

Well, I was just saying that he seems to confide in her a lot. I always see them talking with each other, and they acted like leaders of the Detective Boys. So, what I really wanted to know was about something that had been bothering me. It felt like Conan-kun would act differently sometimes when he was around adults instead of when he was around other children. I was curious about that, and I wanted to find out if she felt that way, too.

"He does act differently," said Ai-chan.

Aha! So I was right!

"Around adults, he acts more like a child. Around children, he acts more like an adult. Edogawa-kun is keenly attuned to the expectations of the people around him. Adults see a child and expect cuteness. If the child is intelligent, they're not taken seriously. They're termed _precocious_ or looked upon as prodigies. Children want to be more like adults, so a child who is intelligent must eschew acting like a child altogether. That makes their intelligence cool and desirable. So you see, Edogawa-kun absolutely changes the way he acts depending on who's around him. That way, he—as an intelligent _child_ —fits in the way people expect an intelligent child to fit in."

Oh gosh. We weren't yet a hundred meters from the Professor's house, and already, my idea about Conan-kun and Shinichi was looking foolish. Was Conan-kun just a really smart kid who was shrewd enough to change how he acted to keep people from harassing him?

No, no, there are smart children, and there's Conan-kun. Not every smart kid would be invited to face off with KID on a regular basis. Surely Ai-chan—who wasn't dumb by any stretch of the imagination—had noticed it, right? Conan-kun was far too smart for a child. He knew far too much about criminology and forensics. She'd spent enough time around him to know!

"Mori-san," said Ai-chan, "do you intend to take Edogawa-kun out of Teitan Elementary and move him to an accelerated learning program?"

She didn't get it. She didn't get it, and I was left there walking along the road like a fool. Conan-kun's closest friend just thought he was a smart kid. Well, maybe it was a mistake to rely on the observations of a child to crack this case. Could I get Conan-kun's DNA from a toothbrush? Maybe when Shinichi's parents next came to town, I could get a sample from his father and send in for a paternity test.

"Is that all?" asked Ai-chan. "Is there anything else you need to ask me?"

We were only a few blocks away from the Professor's when Ai-chan asked that question. She must've thought that I only wanted to pick her brain about Conan-kun. Maybe that's what I originally wanted, too, but looking at her right there, with her really sharp-looking coat and her matching umbrella and all that, I thought it would be a shame to take her out just to send her back home so early. Conan-kun had said Ai-chan lost her big sister. The least I could do to thank Ai-chan for putting up with me was to take her out and show her a good time.

I crouched down in front of her and smiled. "I said we'd go on a date—a girls' day out. We can go wherever you like. That's a promise."

Ai-chan looked at me open-mouthed. Was she surprised? Touched? I couldn't quite tell, but whatever it was, it went away quickly, and she put on a sly smile instead. "I'll hold you to that," she said, and for the rest of the walk into the heart of town, Ai-chan led the way.

#

Ai-chan, I quickly realized, had sophisticated taste. She made a beeline for the United Bolts store in downtown Beika. She said it was a favorite store of hers, but the other kids would probably get bored there. Someone used to take her there every once in a while and get her something nice, but that person was no longer in her life. Still, the story made me worry. The last thing I wanted to do was intrude on memories Ai-chan had with her sister, but Ai-chan had led the way. This was her choice, and I was in no position to argue.

The sheer size of the Bolts store was a little overwhelming to me. You needed a spyglass to see across that place, but Ai-chan seemed to know it like the back of her hand. She spent a full hour in the bag section, and she was especially fond of Fusae brand. Apparently the Professor had been a longtime friend of Fusae Campbell, and Ai-chan wanted to support their friendship by buying a new coin purse. I thought that was very cute, and I offered to cover it for her as thanks for putting up with my questions. Ai-chan hesitated, but she eventually gave up on arguing with me—as long as she could help me pick something out that I wanted. Well, that was a little embarrassing, but I'd been wanting to buy a new coat—something colorful but also practical for the cold weather. Ai-chan quickly steered me to a dark red wool coat. "Red always draws attention," she said, and with the ability to tie the coat around my waist, it would hug my figure better—if I wanted it to. Honestly, where did she get the idea I'd want to do that? Shinichi would probably just say that it looked nice without even actually looking at it—and yet somehow he'd know every detail of the thing, down to what where it was made and how much it cost. Honestly, if you can look at something and instantly know everything about it, that must be pretty boring. If I wore that coat, I'd want people to admire it and savor it because it's pretty.

Oh well. There was no point in worrying about what Shinichi would think. I did like the coat, and the next time I saw him, I'd be sure to wear it, and if he did notice it, I'd mention that Ai-chan helped me pick it out. She deserved that much credit—and more! She started rattling off a list of accessories that would go well with the coat, from shoes and socks to handbags, scarves, and sunglasses. Honestly, she was a fashion encyclopedia! Sonoko and I would have to take her along whenever we went shopping.

"Please," said Ai-chan, waving me off. "90% of what I've learned, anyone could pick up from a few magazines."

"And the other 10%?" I asked.

Ai-chan looked away. "From my sister."

"Ah…" I hadn't expected she would bring it up. Maybe it was too much for me to even ask about it. Having come that far, I didn't have much I could say about it without steering the conversation somewhere Ai-chan might not have wanted to go.

Frowning, Ai-chan looked at me with hard eyes. "What did he tell you?" she asked.

I sighed, and I told her. It really wasn't much—just that she probably wouldn't want to talk about it. I was the one who pried about it in the first place, not knowing the truth.

"Well," said Ai-chan, huffing, "it seems someone has a sliver of discretion after all. How about that?" She looked back at me. "It's not that I don't want to talk about it. I loved my sister. She gave up a lot for me. She would've loved a place like this." Ai-chan ran her fingers down a cream-colored blouse and smiled—really smiled, with fondness and warmth. "We didn't have very much that was really ours, but we had dreams of being able to buy stuff like this—as if we could look nice and make all our other problems go away. So, I do like to pay attention to fashion and stuff. It helps me feel like I can fulfill that dream of hers."

I could appreciate that. It's hard to lose family. It's hard to be separated from them. When my parents split up and I no longer saw my mother every day like I was used to, it was really hard. There were things that we shared that we couldn't anymore—a lot of it having to do with being frustrated with my father, but still, it mattered.

And I think that's part of why I missed Shinichi as much as I did. We'd been as close as blood through the years. To go through all that and then just have him go run off for some mysterious case—that was hard, too. It was serious, right? That's what I told myself. It was serious. It mattered. He wouldn't have just walked away from his life, or from me, lightly. He loved me, didn't he?

Maybe that's what made it easy for me to wonder if Shinichi were hiding from me in plain sight. It would be easier to believe he hadn't just run off and left me and all of his old life behind. If he'd been turned into a child somehow—if he didn't have a choice in the matter—then I wouldn't have to wonder what was so compelling that he would willingly decide to leave. It was one thing to know that he loved me. That wasn't quite the same as seeing his smile every day, as putting up with him being clueless about how to treat people, as hearing him gush about Sherlock Holmes' wisdom and intellect. I missed those things. I missed them a lot. And maybe it was just wishful thinking to believe that Shinichi hadn't taken all of that away from me willingly and knowingly. I understood that some things were more important. Shinichi always helped people. He couldn't just stand by and not do that. But that also made it only a little easier.

Then again, if Shinichi hadn't left—if I hadn't wondered about Conan-kun—I wouldn't have gone on this date with Ai-chan, and it had been a nice date. It was nice to meet someone else who missed someone in her life. Just missing Shinichi wasn't the same as having someone leave for good, but it helped me a little, and I hoped that the date helped Ai-chan, too. Judging by how she spent five good minutes talking about the use of wool in modern fashion, I'd say she was having a great time. If Conan-kun was a mystery geek and Ai-chan a fashion geek, they should get along great together! I mentioned that to Ai-chan, but she was less than thrilled about it.

On our way out, Ai-chan and I started talking about what we would do next. There was a bakery next to the Bolts store—one that I'd noticed would close in the mid-afternoon. Ai-chan wanted to get some sweets, and I thought that was a great idea. Finally, Ai-chan had asked for something like a normal child! But as we left the United Bolts store, Ai-chan froze up. Her eyes went wide, and she crept behind me, using my legs as a shield.

"What is it?" I asked. "Something wrong?"

"I—I think I need to go to the toilet," she said. "Do you mind if we go back inside?"

"Not at all," I said.

Ai-chan opened her umbrella, but it wasn't raining. She tilted the cap back, blocking all view of her head from the street, and she ran inside, leaving the umbrella open until she was out of sight, and I realized that while I'd been thinking a lot about how odd Conan-kun could be and whether he'd been hiding something from me, I'd neglected another mystery right in front of me. That wasn't the first time Ai-chan had clung to me frightened and scared. Something had spooked her. That girl, who could normally be so cool, couldn't have run any faster.

I looked around the road, trying to figure out what had spooked Ai-chan so. There were a few people across the way. Maybe one of the girls there resembled her sister? Conan-kun hadn't wanted to talk that. Had something happened to her? How would I know just by looking at someone?

I took one last look around, and one thing did catch my eye: an older car, a classic car. It was a beautiful looking thing, with the headlights sticking up from the hood. Even in such an old style, the black color made it look sleek and fast—just as you'd expect, even from an old model Porsche.

#

While Ai-chan was in the toilet, I called the Professor.

"Ah, Ran-kun, hello! How is your date going? I hope she's not too much trouble."

"Not at all, she's actually quite lovely when you get to know her," I said. "But Professor, something's wrong here. Ai-chan and I walked outside and she froze up about something. She couldn't have gotten back inside fast enough. Right now, she won't come out of the toilet. What can I do?"

"What happened?" the Professor asked. "Did you see anyone? Did someone try to talk to her?"

"No, no? I don't know? Professor, what's going on? She was like this on the mystery train, too."

"I'll—I'll be right there. Just sit tight. Keep her calm if you can. I'll try calling her, too. And thanks."

"But Professor—"

He hung up.

That wasn't very helpful. I mean, I was fairly sure Ai-chan didn't really need to go to the toilet. She was hiding there, and not wanting her to worry when she decided to come out, I stood watch in front of the women's restroom. I couldn't exactly tell women not to go inside, but I looked them in the eye and tried to judge whether they had innocent intentions or not. I couldn't just let the women go, after all. The person who'd once put a gun to Ai-chan and me was a woman, right? And she was a dangerous one. She'd managed to pass herself off as Azusa-san once without anyone else knowing.

All this time I'd been concerned with Conan-kun being Shinichi. Maybe I should've been more concerned about Ai-chan. In hindsight, it made too much sense. She suddenly appeared at the Professor's, and instead of passing her off to me like he had with Conan-kun, the Professor kept Ai-chan. He wasn't equipped to raise a child, but he might've been prepared to protect one, and he might not have wanted to put my father and me in danger.

But it was one thing to think about all that. It didn't do anything to help me get out of it. I didn't know what or who Ai-chan was afraid of. I could've let her enemies pass without even batting an eye. I wasn't prepared to deal with that. But the Professor told me to wait, so I waited.

I waited until my phone rang.

"Professor?"

"Eh? I'm not a professor yet. Do you really think that much of me?"

Shinichi. Why? Why did he have to call right then? Ordinarily I would've loved to spend an hour talking to him, but with Ai-chan holed up in the toilet, I really couldn't afford to indulge myself.

"Sorry, I was expecting to hear from Professor Agasa," I explained. "I don't think I can talk very long. I'm actually—"

"Taking that Haibara girl on a date," he said.

I looked around the store. Was he waiting by the shoe section and waving at me? No. "Have you been talking to the Professor?" I asked.

"Sort of," he said. "Ran, don't worry; I'm going to get you and that Haibara girl out of there safe and sound. That's a promise."

"Safe and sound from what?"

"Earlier, you and Haibara walked out of United Bolts. Across the street and to your left, there was a black Porsche 356A. It's an old, old model from the late 1950s. There are people that have bad intentions for that Haibara girl. Two of them like to ride around in a Porsche 356A. Look around the store right now. Do you see anyone in black trench coats and hats?"

I crept out of the hall to the restrooms and scanned the store. Two men in trench coats would've been hard to miss. "I don't see anyone like that," I said.

"Good. No matter what, do not let them see Haibara. I've brought up some floor plans for the store; I'm going to lead you to a back door and try to minimize how exposed you two are while you get there, but I'm going to be relying on you to lead Haibara safely. If you can go around a display or something like that, something that helps keep her out of sight, do that. I leave that all to you. When you're ready, knock three times on the door to the women's restroom. Haibara will know it's you and come out."

"Shinichi," I said, "how do you know about all of this?"

"Ran, you need to get her out of there. I'll explain when you get to the Professor's car. Go get Haibara, please. I'm counting on you."

I sighed, and I narrowed my eyes even though he couldn't see me. "You _are_ going to explain this."

"I will; I will!"

I let that go for the moment. I plugged in my earphones to keep Shinichi on the line, and I knocked three times. Ai-chan came out immediately, looking shaken but determined. I offered a hand to her. "The Professor's waiting for us near the back door," I said. "Are you ready to go?"

Ai-chan took my hand and nodded, and she stayed close to me as we left the restrooms and started making our way toward the back of the store. We followed the walls as much as possible. Ai-chan kept her head down, and she asked for a scarf to help cover her hair, saying she'd take it off once we were closer to the exit.

We were only about halfway through the store, in the men's suits section, when _they_ came: a square-jawed man and a man with long, flowing hair, both dressed head-to-toe in black. An odor of cigarettes hit me so hard I coughed, and it was all I could do to muffle the sound with my hand, hoping they wouldn't look at me. Ai-chan caught sight of them, too, and she clung to my legs. I tried to look interested in men's dress shirts, only daring to look out of the corner of my eye. "Shinichi," I said into my earbuds' microphone, "they're here."

"Do they see you?"

"No," I said, watching them pass in front of us. "They're coming down the main walkway. They're being escorted by a sales clerk."

"Tell me about the clerk."

I looked her up and down. "It's a woman. Short brown hair, green eyes."

"Tell me about her breasts."

It took all of my willpower not to shout at Shinichi for that. As it was, I only snapped a hanger in half in my hands. "Shinichi," I said coldly, "do you want to clarify that?"

"I'd ask you to take a picture so I could figure out if she's someone I know that works with them, but if they caught you, you'd be done for. Height, weight, build, measurements—all of that would help me figure it out. Please."

"Tall. Large breasts if you're so interested." The three of them went into an employee only area. "Sorry, they're out of sight now."

"Green eyes, though," Shinichi muttered. "Weird. All right, if they're out of sight, you can keep moving. Hurry."

He didn't have to tell me twice. Ai-chan and I trotted past that doorway, trying not to look like shoplifters as we made our way around. What worried me most was what happened when we got around to the back. We'd have to go through an employee-only area or trip an emergency exit alarm. Shinichi assured me that it wouldn't be a problem, but I didn't realize what that meant in practice: when we got to the door to the employee-only area in that back of the store, Ai-chan asked me for a hairpin, and she started trying to pick the lock!

"Do you really know how to do this?" I asked.

"I'm a little rusty," she admitted.

Rusty from when?

"Hey!" A staff member caught us there, peering at us from another aisle. "What are you doing?"

"Tell him you thought that restroom was this way," said Shinichi over the phone. "Keep him distracted."

"I thought the bathroom was this way," I said, stepping toward the man. "My little sister really needs to go."

"They're near the front of the store," said the man, pointing toward the way we came. "That's a locked door; don't mess with it!"

"I'm sorry; we—"

"Urk!" The man shuddered, keeling over and slumping against a rack of sweaters.

"Sir!" I ran to him and tried to cradle his head. "Sir, are you all right?"

"Leave him," said Shinichi.

"But this man just fell over!" I said. "What if he had a heart attack?"

"He's going to be fine. Haibara's just put him to sleep."

Back at the door, Ai-chan slipped something—I didn't get a good look—back into her handbag, and she resumed trying to pick the lock. I stared at her, but she didn't pay me any mind.

She didn't pay attention to me, but other people around us had. Two other shoppers came up to the staff member and started checking for a pulse. That attracted a security guard, who radioed that there was a "potential second victim" near the winter-wear section. Ai-chan shot me a glare and yanked the hairpin from the lock.

"What's going on?" I asked the security officer. "My sister and I really need to go."

"I'm afraid no one's going anywhere, miss," said the security officer. "Somebody's died in one of the back rooms. The store's being locked down. Everyone needs to stay put until the police arrive."

Ai-chan and I exchanged a glance, and she tightened the black scarf around her head, leaving only a small lock of her reddish-brown hair visible to others.

We weren't going anywhere.

The store was a cage, and we were trapped in there with a bunch of murderous crows.

#

Shinichi kept us informed while the police arrived on the scene. Someone had been shot, and security had found that a shipment of imitation snakeskin purses was actually a _real_ shipment of snakeskin purses. The police were going through the whole store to determine who had brought the shipment inside, who might've shot the clerk who'd detected it, and so on. Shinichi thought it likely that those men in black had been in on it: they might've been part of a smuggling operation, and one of the store employees not involved in the scheme had gotten a little too nosy.

That was no help to Ai-chan and me, though. While it was a relief to know those men hadn't seen Ai-chan and probably didn't know we were there, Ai-chan was still shaking. We'd drifted away from the man who'd collapsed, not wanting any more attention to fall on us, and we were hiding between rows of men's dress pants, and Ai-chan held on to the rack like a vice.

"Shinichi," I said over the phone, quietly, "I don't know what to do here. Ai-chan is terrified."

"Look, the police are going to work their way through; those guys aren't going to poke their heads out. Detective Sato will be by soon. I've spoken to her myself. They're going to lead you two out, and the Professor will be waiting to get you to safety."

I told Ai-chan that, but she wasn't calmed by any of it. "They're going to kill me," she said. "They're going to kill me, and then you, and then everyone you know."

"There's no way that's going to happen," I told her, and I cupped her cheek and met her eyes. "You listen to me. I know you're frightened. I know you're scared, but my friend is helping, and he's going to move heaven and earth to make sure that we get out of here alive. I promise you that."

Ai-chan's eyes narrowed. "Give me the phone."

"Excuse me?"

She extended hand, and I unplugged the earbuds and handed over the phone. She put it up to her ear, looking stern and focused. "It's me," she said. "What's your plan?"

There was a pause. Shinichi was talking. I couldn't quite make it out.

"No, you listen to me!" said Ai-chan. "If they go after the Professor and the kids next—"

Another pause.

"I will not wait here to die. I will not wait for the police, whom _they_ are almost certainly watching! Let her go on her own! I can handle this myself!"

"I won't do that!" I said.

Ai-chan looked at the phone, then at me, and she sighed. "All right, fine. We've established you're both hopelessly heroic fools. So be it."

Another pause.

"I haven't thanked you yet," said Ai-chan, but there was a slight hint of a smile on her face. "If the two of us end up brutally murdered, I hope you'll eat your words thoroughly."

A pause. Ai-chan looked me up and down.

"I think you're not giving her enough credit," she said.

One last pause.

"All right, all right. I'm putting her on. And you—stay safe, Kudo-kun."

Ai-chan gave me the phone, and I plugged it back into my earbuds. Shinichi spoke right away. "Ran," he said. "Are you with me?"

"I am," I said.

"She's going to pretend she's not as scared as she really is," he said. "Don't let that fool you. Just sit tight and stay relaxed. Oh, and there's one more thing I need to ask you to do: Haibara has a handbag with her, right? I don't expect you've seen what's in it, but she should have a pillbox. There are some red-and-white pills inside. If things get bad enough, she'll probably try to run away from you and take one of those pills. Don't let her take that pill, no matter what. Do you understand?"

I looked at Ai-chan and the beige handbag hanging from her shoulder. Just how was I supposed to make sure she never took one of the pills inside? "I'll try," I told Shinichi.

"Thanks, I know you'll do everything you can. I'm sorry about all this."

"It's not your fault, is it?"

Shinichi didn't say a word at that.

Well, whoever's fault it was, knowing that wouldn't get us out of the situation. Shinichi had a plan, but would we be able to hold on that long? Ai-chan was still clearly unnerved, holding on to that pant rack like her she'd float off into space if she didn't. I put Shinichi on mute temporarily, wanting to talk to Ai-chan without him overhearing.

"How are you doing?" I asked.

Ai-chan looked away. "It doesn't get easier. Even if we get out of here, and I'm back at the Professor's house, it's no guarantee that I'm safe. If they're smuggling something into this store, all it would take is one of their people on the inside to look at some security footage and see that I was here." She looked at me. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" I asked.

"Now you'll worry about that, too."

"That's not your fault, either, is it?" I said, holding her chin to make her look up. I smiled. "I think the fault ultimately lies with the bad guys, hm?"

She slapped my hand away, and she glared at me. "Just because they're guilty doesn't mean I'm innocent. You know nothing about me. You know nothing about the things I've done to animals for the sake of curiosity. You know nothing about toxins I've dared to play with. Don't look at me and see what you want to see. Don't look at me and think you're looking at a standoffish and shy child. You don't know anything about me!"

I crossed my arms. "Just because I don't know that much about you doesn't mean you're guilty of anything. Two can play that game."

Scowling, Ai-chan motioned for me to lean closer, and she whispered in my ear. "How much did you cry when Kudo Shinichi didn't come back that night after you went to Tropical Land?"

I shuddered. I pulled back and looked at her, and Ai-chan had an expression I didn't think belonged on a child's face. It was sinister, knowing look.

"You've shed a lot of tears over him, haven't you?" said Ai-chan. "Week after week, you wait for him, yearning for him to come back, but all you get is a phone call now and then. You wonder about it, don't you? What could be so important that he's given up everything about his normal life? But you already know. You know it in your heart. You know he's the type of person who'd relentlessly pursue the truth—even for the sake of a single life—because no matter how guilty the person is, no matter how many crimes they committed in the past, if he can save them, he will. So? Do you still wonder why Kudo Shinichi is away from you? It's for the sake of people—no matter how guilty or innocent they may be. It might be for the sake of someone pure. It might be for the sake of someone like me." Ai-chan nodded, making sure my eyes were still on her. "You could leave it to him. Why do you have to help the kind of person who would take so much away from you?"

Why?

You know, Ai-chan was right about something. Why did I have to follow through with Shinichi's obsession? I never signed up to be a mystery geek. I never signed up to solve murders or to be a pawn in some kind of spy game. But if Ai-chan thought I would hate her just because she "might or might not" have forced Shinichi away from me, then she didn't know me very well.

I thought about patting her on the head, but it didn't seem appropriate somehow. Instead, I took her by the hand—by the hand that was still gripping the post of the clothing rack—and said, "Honestly, if you want me to leave you here, you're going to have to be a lot crueler than that."

Ai-chan seemed surprised by that. She stared at me, open-mouthed, and after a moment to take it in, a small smile crept across her face. "You really are very similar," she said.

If she meant I wasn't going to give up on saving her just like how Shinichi wouldn't, she was right about that.

#

When the police arrived, Detective Sato came for us, and only then did Ai-chan let go of the rack of sweaters, allowing me to hold her hand as the police questioned us. Did we see anything or hear anything out of the ordinary? No and no. We were halfway across the store when we first heard anything about someone dying. Detective Sato jotted down some notes, but I could tell she wasn't making us go through a full interrogation. Shinichi had been in contact with her, saying that Ai-chan was scared of snakes, so a way for us to get her out of the situation would be appreciate—the more discreet the better. Since the police didn't want to be seen allowing just anyone to leave, discretion was in their interest, too.

The only thing I was worried about, at the time, was how discreet it would be for a police officer to escort someone out of the store, but Shinichi and Detective Sato had that covered. The detective showed us through the door that Ai-chan had been trying to pick earlier, and we met with two other plainclothes detectives in the employee-only area. It was a stark change from the warm glow inside the store. The cold, white fluorescent lights there hurt my eyes and made Ai-chan look sickly and pale.

"Wait!" Detective Sato stuck out her arm, barring us from going through the door to the alley. "Something's up."

I asked Shinichi what was going on. He said, "There's—ah, the Professor said there's some trouble around back. The black Porsche just tried to circle around and get an angle on the alleyway. One of the patrol cars stopped them to get their information, but it's just a stall tactic, so—"

POP! A muffled sound rang through the walls.

The officers tensed up. Detective Sato drew her weapon and started talking into her radio. "Shot fired, shot fired, vicinity of the alley behind Bolts." She looked at me. "Ran-chan, stay here." She nodded at the two officers with us. "You're with me! Let's go!"

"That was a rifle shot," said Shinichi over the phone. "Just one shot? Why?"

Like I would know! One shot or a hundred, the police were scurrying about and had left us alone! Ai-chan was probably scared to death!

I looked around. My hand was dangling empty. "Shinichi, Ai-chan's gone!" I cried.

"She's gone? Where—the fitting rooms! Where are the fitting rooms?"

I ran back around the crates and clothing racks into the main store. The fitting rooms weren't far—just about twenty meters to my left. Ai-chan had to be frightened out of her mind; she still wouldn't want to be seen even then, but unlike the men in black, I knew she was there, and I knew what I was looking for: the black scarf that we'd swiped from a display and wrapped around her hair. Between the racks of clothes, a small figure with a black scarf around its head dragged a sweater and a pair of jeans toward the fitting rooms.

I trotted after her. I couldn't take the chance that someone would notice a girl running at full speed, but that also gave Ai-chan time. The fitting rooms weren't being manned. All the staff must've been busy dealing with the situation. Ai-chan slipped out of view, and my step quickened just a little.

When I got to the stalls, I called out to her. "Ai-chan!" But there was no answer. I poked the doors open one at a time until one of them wouldn't give way.

 _Don't let her take that pill, no matter what._

I didn't wait for her to respond. I did karate, you know. I did karate, so I kicked that door open and snapped the lock off. Ai-chan was stunned, jumping back from the door.

And the red-and-white pill was still between her thumb and her index finger. I snatched it out of her hand.

"I think you have some more of those?" I asked.

She motioned to her handbag, and aside from a wristwatch that looked a lot like Conan-kun's, I found a case of pills—there must've been a hundred of those pills inside!—and put it in my own purse for safekeeping.

"You won't be needing any of those for a while," I told her. "We're getting out of here." I offered Ai-chan a hand, and though she was still shaking a little, she took it, and I pulled her out of the changing stall.

No sooner than I'd done that, someone came into the fitting room area. It was a woman—one of the staff members. It was the woman with short brown hair and green eyes who'd escorted those two men on their way in.

"What's all the commotion here?" she asked. "Did you two do this?"

Ai-chan tensed up.

"I'm afraid you'll have to come with me," said the woman. "We'll have to talk to a manager about the damage you've caused here."

Ai-chan was still partially hidden by the stall. She shook her head, eyes wide with fright.

"Ran, what's happening?" asked Shinichi over the phone.

I looked at the woman. "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

"It's the woman from before, isn't it?" asked Shinichi. "Cough once if it is."

I coughed.

The woman looked me up and down, and she seemed amused with something. "I'm afraid I have to ask you to come with me now, please."

"My sister's a little shy," I said. "Can I give you a credit card or something, and we'll deal with this later?"

"If you don't come with me now," said the woman, locking her cold green eyes on me, "I'll have to call security."

Ai-chan shook her head again, but the response in my ear, from Shinichi, wasn't what I expected.

"It's all right," he said. "Go with her."

I coughed again.

"She won't hurt you," said Shinichi. "I'm sure of it."

Ai-chan was still hiding behind the stall. The woman plucked a handheld radio from her vest and looked at me expectantly.

My heart racing, I squeezed Ai-chan's hand, and I said, "Come on." I looked into the stall and smiled. "Listen to your big sister. It's going to be all right. If your brother were here, I'm sure he'd say the same thing."

Ai-chan looked up at me with wide, uncertain eyes, but she steeled herself, and with her head down, she came out. The woman staff member smiled—a smile that made my skin crawl—and she motioned for me to follow. She let us go first, and because of that, Ai-chan went ahead of me, staying as far away from the woman as possible. The woman gave us directions, leading us around the perimeter of the store to another staff-only area. Thankfully, it was a different one from the one I'd seen the two men in black go into.

"You're lucky, you know," said the woman. "This store and the one on the corner used to be a single unit, but the Bolts people didn't want both. There are still a few connecting doors between them. Most of them are alarmed, but if you have a key…" She dangled a keychain in front of her face, and she led the two of us to a control panels with a network of LEDs. She inserted the key, and a pair of red lights went out. "Come along."

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"What do you think I'm doing? You're in a bit of a jam. I was once in a jam once, and two kind people decided to help me out. It seems only polite to return the favor, hm?"

She led us to a gray door. There was dust on the doorknob, but the woman didn't hesitate to turn it and open the way. To my surprise, an alarm sounded—but not inside the United Bolts store, just the connecting one.

"Just one more thing," said the woman, looking at Ai-chan. "Don't forget, Sherry: we're everywhere, and we're looking for you. You won't always have a guardian angel watching over you. Remember that."

An angel?

That woman—that woman was the one from before! The one who looked like Azusa-san! The one who shot at us!

But before I could say anything about it, the woman pushed us through the door and shut it behind us.

"Ran! Can you hear me?" It was Shinichi on the phone. "Are you out? The Professor should be pulling around to pick you up."

I shook off my surprise. The woman was gone. We were inside a kitchen of some kind, and on the way out I saw that we'd trespassed into the corner bakery that had closed for the day. The owners would have to forgive us; we needed to undo the locks in order to get out. It also made me realize that we'd unintentionally stolen the black scarf around Ai-chan's head, too. I didn't know when I'd have the chance to return it.

We headed onto the street corner around and to the right of United Bolts, and the Professor's Beetle was just across the street. The rear window rolled down, and Conan-kun peered out. "Ran-nee-chan! Over here!"

I let Ai-chan go first, and I closed the door behind us. The Professor couldn't have hit the gas any faster. I took the microphone on my earbuds and held it close to my mouth. "Shinichi, I made it! I'm with the Professor!"

But he wasn't with me. I didn't know when it'd happened, but sometime while we were running across the street, he must've hung up.

I looked at Conan-kun, who was busy consoling Ai-chan. She kept her head down, under the level of the windows, and that meant she practically had her head in Conan-kun's lap. For two kids who wouldn't call each other _friends_ , it was a tender moment between them. Conan-kun rested a hand on her head, saying nothing, and for Ai-chan, that seemed to be enough.

#

The next day, I heard from Conan-kun that Ai-chan had been in no state to go to school, so when I was done with clubs, I made a plan to bake some cookies. Cookies make everything better, after all, and when Conan-kun got home, he seemed to like the idea. "Even Haibara doesn't hate cookies," he said. He suggested peanut butter cookies, having a suspicion that she'd like those especially.

Conan-kun had spent all the evening before at the Professor's, tending to Ai-chan and her nerves, so that next day was the first time I really had a chance to talk with him about what had happened. I asked him how he was doing—tending to a friend who'd gone through such a traumatic experience couldn't be easy—and he said things were all right. They were as all right as they could be. Someone was after Ai-chan, after all. The last thing he wanted to see happen was for her to shut herself in for several days, losing contact with their friends, and making herself miserable over what, he believed, was just an awful coincidence.

"I wish you guys had just gone out and had a good time," he remarked while helping me with the dough. It was adorable, really, watching him look so serious while standing barefoot on a box to reach the counter.

I pointed out we'd had a good time, though—right up until those men in black showed up. Ai-chan was a fun shopping partner, and even though this had happened, I'd make sure to take her along again. Maybe with Sonoko and Ayumi-chan, so she wouldn't feel pressure, but it was going to happen. I'd make sure of it. I may have seen a darker side to Ai-chan, but on the whole, I liked her.

" _Like_ is a strong word," said Conan-kun, staring intently at the dough as he helped me knead, "but I don't want to see anything happen to her, either."

I touched his shoulder. "You were there for her, right? You were there when she needed support."

Conan-kun looked downcast. "Didn't seem like enough."

Maybe it wasn't, but I thought Conan-kun was being a little hard on himself. He'd done all that could be expected of a 7-year-old child.

If anyone had been disappointing, it had been the voice on the phone that had guided me through that ordeal. Shinichi had promised me some answers, and while the cookies were in the oven, I made sure to remind him about that, which he apologized for—twice. He admitted that Ai-chan was connected to the case he'd been working. All right, that was a start. If he was trying to help give Ai-chan a normal life, I could stand him not being around. It was a tiny justification for him being gone, and though I was still unhappy with him—and I would be expecting something nice from him to make up for what I'd been through—I told him something I thought he needed to hear, too: "I'm still mad at you," I wrote, "but you were also a real hero to me, and to Ai-chan. Thanks for looking out for us."

When I saw Conan-kun for dinner, he was smiling. He was in the best mood he'd been in all day.

#

I took the cookies over to the Professor's house after dinner. What struck me was that the lights in the main room weren't on—it was as if the Professor wanted to make it look like no one was home. But the Professor answered the door, apologizing for making me wait (he hadn't), and he promised Ai-chan would come up, even if she probably wouldn't come all the way to the door.

So I met Ai-chan in the living room, out of sight of prying eyes from the street. The living room was still dark, and with the fading sunlight, I could only see half of her face. The one eye I saw had a pronounced bag under it, but she still had a serious and unflinching look.

"That's not good for the Professor's diet," she said, accepting the tray of cookies, "but thank you." She looked up, at me, seemingly hesitant. "I enjoyed yesterday—before all that stuff happened."

"I did, too," I said. "Hopefully the next time won't be like that."

Ai-chan didn't answer. She just held the tray of cookies in front of her, staring at them.

"There will be a next time," I insisted. "Shinichi's looking out for you, and so am I."

"You don't have to do that," she said.

"You can't stop me," I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "So don't try. I won't ask you to smile when you're afraid, but I will ask you to not let them take your life away while you're still alive."

Ai-chan stifled a laugh at that. "We don't always have that choice," she said, "but I admire you for thinking that way. Thank you." She looked up at me. "You've been through a lot. I know it must be confusing. If there's something I can answer, I owe you that much."

"Anything?" I said.

Ai-chan scowled, but I laughed and waved off her irritation.

"Just one thing," I said. "How old are you really?"

Ai-chan's scowl turned into a sly smirk. "I'm 84 years old."

"What!"

"I'm kidding," she said. "The truth is…" She looked aside before her smirk grew even wider. "I'm just a year older than Edogawa-kun."

A smile crept across my face. "Really?"

"Really," she said with a nod.

"I see," I said, and I took a cookie from the tray. "I thought so." That cookie, you see, was a gift to myself for a correct deduction, and as Ai-chan and I shared the tray—making sure the Professor wouldn't stuff himself too badly later on—I couldn't help but think about how Shinichi feels when he gets a deduction right. If it was anything like what it felt like to savor that fresh-baked cookie, and to enjoy it with a friend, then it must've felt pretty good.

 **End**


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